Weekend Box Office: The ‘Divisive’ ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Puts Up A Monster Opening Weekend

Reaction on social media to Star Wars: The Last Jedi has, so far, seemed divisive. In fact, the Rotten Tomatoes audience score for the eighth chapter in the franchise currently sits at 56 percent despite overwhelming critical support for the film. That’s a considerably lower audience score than for Justice League. But something feels fishy about it (aside from the fact that most of the audience scores come from first-time users). In fact, it doesn’t jibe at all with PostTrak audience polls, which show a 90 percent positive reception to the film, while Cinemascore gives the franchise its third straight ‘A.’ My guess is that the 10 percent who did not give the movie a positive score are also the most vocal about their opinions on Rotten Tomatoes and social media. That loud minority is reframing the narrative around the reception of the film.

It is not, however, affecting the box-office take. The Last Jedi is on track to earn a whopping $219 million this weekend, second all time behind on The Force Awakens, which earned $247 million. While it is down somewhat from the seventh chapter — which had the benefit of years of anticipation — it nevertheless scored considerably more than the massive $155 million opening weekend of Rogue One last year. The $219 million gross is a huge number that also seems to put it on track to at least compete for Avatar for the second highest grossing film of all time, domestic, behind only The Force Awakens.

It looks like the Star Wars franchise remains healthy and robust. In fact, Star Warsdrove 81 percent of all the box-office revenue this weekend, and Disney owned a full 92 percent of the weekend’s box-office take. However, $13 million of the non-Disney money came from the second place film, Ferdinand, which was produced by Fox, the company that Disney agreed to purchase earlier this week. Well reviewed (74 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and well-liked by audiences (an ‘A’ Cinemsacore), Ferdinand nevertheless had its work cut out for it going up against The Last Jedi. Ultimately it performed about as well as Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip ($14 million) did against The Force Awakens two years ago. It should, however, continue to perform modestly well over the holidays as one of the few options for smaller kids outside of The Last Jedi and Coco.

The second weekend of Last Jedi will show how divisive it truly is. Either it’ll plummet like a DC movie or it’ll make around $120 million and keep killing it. My bet is on the latter. Even the people complaining about how much they hate it probably need to go see it 3 more times *just* to be sure.

I think you’re being a little cynical on the latter point. I had extremely mixed reactions to it but the more I think about it and see different reactions to it the more I want to see it again. I think I’ll enjoy it more over time as I get over the initial shock of just how tonally different and WEIRD it is.

“aside from the fact that most of the audience scores come from first-time users”

In Red Letter Media’s review of The Force Awakens, they point out how a lot of online entertainment journalists/bloggers wrote articles in the year leading up to the film’s release, where they ‘re-evaluated’ the prequels with ‘better’ critiques. As if to wash the stink away. Considering this is Disney we’re talking about, who has the money to pay off people, I’m glad you pointed this out.

The better reviews of the prequels are coming from people who were 10 when they saw it and loved it. They are now in their late 20s and are having their voices heard. For them, the prequels were *their* Star Wars and they loved it. It’s not some retconning of opinion, it is people who loved them when they were 8 being given a platform to say why they loved them.

So it looks like WB has some ownership in rotten tomatoes. They withhold a score for Justice League (I wonder why) and then they still come up high on viewer
score. Star Wars hits critic score high and viewer ends up low. Which score was s easier to control. Smells like collusion to me.

Pretty much every long time or “hardcore” fan I spoke with about the film said they were underwhelmed, so it’ll be interesting to see how big the drop is for the movie if the normal fanboys don’t end up going multiple times.

Sorry folks, but the Rotten Tomatoes audience score for The Last Jedi is Fake News. Anonymous/4chan set up thousands of “burner” accounts on RT to bring the score down after critics loved it and yet again hated another DC Movie.

Also – apprently all the racist moron Trumptards on 4chan were severely pissed off that the movie feature significant screen time for a black guy and an Asian girl working together. Tiki torch wielding butthurt snowflakes.

As a fan since I was 10 in 1977, the problem I have is that the core people in the OT and PT had motivations that were clear( esp in the OT).
Luke was a farm boy that wanted more and then he’s thrust into a situation to become a hero. The princess is fighting for the survival of her people and Han is worried his life is over if he doesnt get the paying fare asap.

I’m ok with Rey. She’s better in TLJ than TFA. But I don’t see any motivations for Poe or Finn. Why would we care about them?? He’s just a pilot( JJ gave Isaac and bigger part when he balked) and he seems shoehorned into the stories and Finn is a deserter. I just don’t care for the characters and don’t feel they really add anything of any significance to the story. Its a shame as I walked out last night with my 11 yr old son, I just had no emotion about the movie I just saw. Revenge of the Sith is IMHO much better movie. I would much rather watched what George Lucas had planned. Disney is just using Star Wars as a cash grab. I’m so disappointed.